


alatus sidus

by spirallings



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Akaashi Keiji and Iwaizumi Hajime are Half-Brothers, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Curses, Fairy Tale Elements, Falling In Love, Finist the Falcon Inspired, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, M/M, Magical Realism, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, magical library
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29883582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spirallings/pseuds/spirallings
Summary: After overworking himself to near death and a horrible bout of pneumonia, Akaashi Keiji stumbles upon an advertisement for a Head Librarian job in the paper; on a whim, he calls to apply, and finds himself taking up the new position as the head librarian of a library that hides itself away from mortal eyes, hidden within an inconspicuous apartment building complex, a library that is found only by whom is wants to be found, the magical creatures and magic-affiliated. Only they are allowed to walk through its hidden doors.With the job, comes another duty: to assist Fukurodani Toshokan's long-time resident Bokuto Koutarou undo the curse that keeps him inside the library by day as a man, and an owl only by night.And every morning, every evening, Bokuto asks the same question:Will you marry me?
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji & Bokuto Koutarou, Akaashi Keiji & Iwaizumi Hajime, Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 3
Kudos: 40
Collections: Haikyuu Big Bang 2020





	alatus sidus

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [BokuAka Finist AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25614646) by [perevision](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perevision/pseuds/perevision). 



> this is my entry for the Haikyuu Big Bang 2020, partenered with the lovely Fi @/_borromini as my artist, who was such a pleasure to work with over these past few months! i've taken a big mental hit in terms of motivation and desire to write, but this piece is so near and dear to me, it's a joy to write.
> 
> HOWEVER, before i get started, i need to first and foremost give credit to @perevision, whose comic inspired me to write this in the first place. if you've followed me for a few months now, you know that i wrote a similar piece about this same premise, ["feather and lock"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25613539) but it's not necessary to read that first. this takes a different approach!
> 
> check out perevision's comic [here!](https://perevision.tumblr.com/tagged/Finist-AU/chrono/) give it some love
> 
> there is also a [spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/40vQ819pcprOfG6RadrBuR?si=kQ-PKe7zQw6S8v4n8NPhvA) dedicated to this fic, for your listening leisure.
> 
> cheers! here's to a better year for everyone.

When his Great Aunt Naomi was still alive, she used to tell Keiji stories of the creatures that hid within shadows, foxes that could shift into any form they wanted, wolves in the mountains that brought healthy grains for the harvest from the forests they protected, and of birds who could speak.

Sister of his maternal grandmother, Aunt Naomi was a woman who lived closer to the countryside, away from Tokyo’s hustle, bustle and loudness: a worldly woman who traveled as much of the world as she could in her youth and well into her older age, a retired journalist, anda devout Shinto practitioner who prayed every day at the little altar and shrine dedicated to her deceased brothers, cousins, and the woman she’d been living with for years—a woman who’d been just as much of a Great Aunt to Keiji as Naomi was.

It wasn’t until Keiji was much older that he understood who Aunt Sachi truly was and what she meant to Aunt Naomi, and he felt much bitter regret that he’d never gotten a chance to ask her— to talk to her about when she _knew_ , could she help him understand his own confusion, what they were like together behind propriety and strangers, what pressures they’d felt and how did they both hide it and yet continue to live so happily together— but his memories of both were fond. Even long after Sachi’s death (peaceful, in her bed, with Naomi by her side as always, a fresh sprig of mint and wild lilies in a small glass vase on the windowsill), Keiji’s memories always associated them together.

Well into his mid-twenties, along with photographs of his parents and his recently found half-brother, Hajime, he kept a pair of photos of Sachi and Naomi on his desk: one of them as young women walking along the Parthenon, and the other as older women, a few years before Sachi passed away, crafting pottery together. He made sure they were always next to each other.

To most, Aunt Naomi seemed to be a practical woman, and she _was_ in almost all ways: but she also had a great interest in older folktales and the ghosts that still lingered throughout modern Japan.

“It was more Sachi’s interest than mine,” Aunt Naomi grinned, brushing back Keiji’s dark curls as the boy perched himself in her lap: she was one of the few he felt comfortable doing such with at this age. “She grew up near Kyoto, you know: she knew all the ways about the youkai, the spirits, everything about them— I tell you, she was _obsessed_ with the Fair Folk when we visited the Isles in our thirties. The locals warned us not to step on the circles—young _and_ old!— or else it might make the Folk angry. Sachi made sure she followed their instructions to the word.”

“Why can’t you step on them?” Keiji leaned in closer, eyes slightly widened in intrigue. Even at age seven, his interest in stories had been sparked: impossible as Sachi and Naomi’s stories could be, he always hungered for more.

Naomi’s crow’s feet wrinkled with a smile.

“Because if you get caught in their grasp, the Fair Folk could steal your name and you’ll never be able to go home again.”

Since Keiji was only a child, his parents didn’t mind that his Great Aunts filled him with stories of whimsy and fantasy; while the Akaashi family prided themselves on being a practical sort of folk, they held deep respect for those old superstitious beliefs that still lingered, some of which they still adopted. Why else would they go to a shrine every New Years if they didn’t believe at least some of it? Fairies and the fairy forts that Aunt Naomi spoke of, however, the fearsome headless driver of a carriage with a human spinal cord for a whip, the black dogs that lingered in church graveyards, and the strange glow of the will o wisp—those were notions of fancy to his parents. Logically, Keiji knew that he should have followed their train of thought: but when he was old enough to look up news articles, he found reports of a road in Ireland started getting dips, making it dangerous to drive on—

_A fairy curse: we have paved over their fort, and they’re angry. You should have known better. You know not to make the Fair Folk angry. They’ve put a curse on us all._

—And then, a law that made it illegal to pave roads over fairy circles and forts, causing the roads to be winding and narrow, so as to respect the space of these creatures said to be as old as the land itself, even when the land itself was said to be purified by hundreds of Christian monks.

“Sachi knew they were real, real as you and I are, Keiji.”

His parents exchanged looks of bemusement and raised eyebrows, faint knowing smiles, while Keiji leaned in: normally such a quiet and reserved boy, Naomi’s stories always managed to light a fire in him, stoking his curiosity.

“How?”

Naomi laughed and hugged him close to her side, always the more affectionate of his Aunts. Her hugs were purposeful and warm: she’d seen enough of the world and life to not care about what was proper or expected of an older woman anymore.

“Because Sachi could _see_ them, Keiji— she’d been able to see the spirits and youkai since she was a little girl.”

Keiji didn’t remember much about Aunt Sachi (because even though they were not related by blood, she was family in all ways that mattered, and though they were unable to make it official in legal documents by the time they died, Naomi and Sachi were wives in every single way that _mattered_ ) since she’d passed when he was four, but he remembered her mirth, the brightness of her smile and the offerings of pork buns she’d leave on the steps of shrines while walking with Keiji and Aunt Naomi. Aunt Naomi passed after a long, fulfilling life when Keiji was eleven years old and by that age, despite feeling the pressures of the world’s expectations on him— go to a good high school, go to a good college, go get a degree in something practical and get a good, practical job— he never forgot her stories. 

The summer before his final year of high school, he was informed of a sudden relation to a half-brother in Miyagi, and, at said half-brother’s insistence, they met and Keiji was told stories of Miyagi’s backwoods, its rivers and streams, by Hajime.

“A crow’s caw is supposed to bring bad luck,” said Hajime, bouncing the volleyball up and down from the ground. He gave a faint snort, a wry smile on his mouth. “If that were true, I don’t think Sendai would be standing anymore since there’s so many crows _everywhere_. They caw and caw all the damn time.”

Hajime still didn’t kill spiders in the morning. He put them in a cup and took them outside, and even now that they were older, both having graduated from high school and college, sharing an apartment while they went to their respective jobs, that habit continued.

Whether or not Hajime truly believed in youkai, spirits or things like the Fair Folk of distant lands— Keiji didn’t know. He doubted it, and he knew that, logically, he shouldn’t believe in such things of fancy and whimsy either.

And yet, when Aunt Naomi died and gave all of her and Sachi’s books on folktales and fairy stories to him in her will, with Sachi’s blessing, Keiji took them. He kept and cared for them to the day, making sure that not a single pare tore or got stained. 

And yet, every New Years, he went to the local shrine to pray, peering at the fox messengers of Inari that guarded the gates. 

And yet, when he once caught glimpse of what had to be a Great Horned Owl flying above the railway of the train during his commute home from class—a sight unheard of in a metropolis like Tokyo— Keiji wondered.

He wondered, and wondered.

*

Keiji didn’t remember where, exactly, he found the job listing for the Head Librarian position. 

Hajime had all but kept him in lockdown within their apartment when Keiji became so overworked at his (now former) desk job at a marketing company in downtown that he could barely stand up for more than a minute before collapsing, culminating in him getting a rather nasty case of pneumonia. He’d been out of work for two weeks and was just barely on the mend, his half-brother practically stuffing him like a taxidermy bird with fluids and nutrients he’d been neglecting for what must have been months, when he found the clipping. 

Hajime was back at the clinic after stopping by on his lunch break to check up on him, waving off Keiji’s mumbled, clogged-nosed apologies with a hair ruffle and _shut up, it’s my job: lean on me once in a while, okay?_ He left magazines for him to read, as it was difficult to focus on a physical book with the sinus headache he had. 

He found the clipping when he opened up a magazine to browse through and it fell into his lap.

Being the right mess he was at the time, the details were foggy about what exactly it was that drew his attention to the job listing, but even in spite of Keiji’s antibiotic muddled brain, he found his attention wandering to the back of that _Reader’s Digest._

The position title was simple—Head Librarian—and it was at a library in the city, not terribly far from where he lived now. The library’s name, however, gave him pause: _Fukurodani Toshokan._

No affiliation with any prefecture, and yet it lived within the Tokyo city limits. The kanji for owl was woven into the title—and Keiji had never heard of it before.

Even after he put the magazine away, he found himself coming back to the clipping as he nursed strong cups of sencha and jasmine (“Doctor’s orders,” Hajime glared as he thrust the mugs towards him, the third of the day, brow knit with subtle worry: given his half-brother’s job at a clinic, it was hard to argue against that, since Hajime was _literally_ a doctor) and pondering. The first week of his pneumonia, Keiji was barely able to string a thought together, but by the second week as the antibiotics kicked in, Keiji had cut out the clipping and had been using it as a makeshift bookmark. He knit his brows at the phone number that was at the bottom, and the odd job requirements that were listed— _No Library Experience Required, Must be comfortable in living nearby apartment complex, Rent included in Salary_ — something that Keiji would not expect to see for something as lucrative as Head Librarian.

Idly, he wondered if this was some sort of scam: duping desperate post-grads for their money or cheap labor with the promise of a job that wouldn’t ask them to have two other degrees and ten years of experience for an entry level job. It was an opportunity that was far too good to be true. It was a trap. Whatever this job was promising, it had to be some kind of scam or pyramid scheme. He shouldn’t have kept the job clipping for as long as he already had. He should have gotten rid of it.

But—

Worrying his lip, Keiji drank his tea and looked out the window of the apartment he shared with Hajime—who shouldn’t have felt obligated to care for him when he had patients to care for, regulars to see, who had to attend to people whose conditions were much worse than his own, who shouldn’t have to share a living space with a half-brother he’d only gotten to know within the past few years and with a half-brother that worked himself near to death to the point of uselessness— and came to a decision.

Keiji called the number to inquire about the position.

He was booked for an interview as soon as he was fully recovered two weeks later.

*

Yamiji Takeyuki was not the Head Librarian of Fukurodani Toshokan. 

He was an imposing figure of a man: taller than even Keiji’s respectable five foot eleven, a square jaw and well-muscled despite his relatively older age. Square glasses sat on his nose and his gray hair was cropped short on his head, and Keiji couldn’t help but find him more than a little intimidating when he was welcomed inside.

Although the man could’ve cut glass with his glare, Yamiji gave Keiji a faint smile upon the younger man giving a deep, respectful bow, and welcomed him inside. 

“There’s no need for formalities like that, Akaashi-kun,” he said. “But it’s appreciated. Would you like some tea before we get started?”

Hesitant to decline such an offer, odd as it was (his desk job certainly didn’t welcome him so warmly during that interview), Keiji gave a quiet nod and he stopped before the entrance of the library, squinting at it: a pair of deep brown doors with handles made of rusted steel. There were etchings in the wood, but he couldn’t quite make them out.

As he stepped through the threshold of the library, Keiji thought he saw them _move_.

One looked like a sparrow flapping its wings.

It was dark when he stepped through the doors, and then: a warm orange-yellow glow that bloomed along the hallways, like gaslit lamps or torches encased in glass. But Keiji couldn’t see where it was coming from.

He’d paused only a few steps away from the doors, staring up at the ceilings and the hallway, before he realized that Yamiji was staring at him. Eyebrows raised, an amused tug to his mouth, waiting for Keiji to follow him. Straightening himself up and remembering his professionalism, Keiji cleared his throat and walked forward to follow the older man, stamping down a flush growing on the back of his neck.

Finding the library itself was.. interesting. 

The building the library was a part of wasn’t tall or imposing like he expected a library to be. It wasn’t part of a larger university campus, nor did it look like the government style of buildings others typically did. It was hidden within a series of apartments, a building that Keiji might not have bat an eyelash at if it hadn’t been pointed out to him, if he hadn’t been given specific directions on how to get there. Crows were perched on window panes and the little flower boxes and street lamps, black eyes glittering down at him as he passed.

Red flags should’ve gone off in an instant. Keiji could hear Hajime yelling at him to not be so _stupid_ in that tone of his that told him just how concerned he was in the back of his head. He could hear Hajime telling him to walk right back out and go home, a red flag that should have told him to go home and go back to his day job that he hated, had driven him to such exhaustion that he got pneumonia that had him taken out for over two weeks, the same expectation that told him to take the overwork as it came.

Akaashi Keiji was a cautious person. Pragmatic and calculative. He did not do things on a whim. He knew his instincts and what they tried to tell him and warn him about. Normally, Keiji would’ve followed that instinct: but it never came. 

He walked into the library and he didn’t feel anything to be afraid of, to feel cautious about—nothing about this place told him to be wary or afraid.

The faint smell of old books filtered through the hall and Keiji felt a small smile tug at his lips.

Yamiji offered him tea, sencha, and Keiji delicately sipped at it as the interview started: it began as most interviews did, with questions about Keiji’s background, his education, his current (hopefully to be former) job, and his aspirations for the future.

“If you were to get this position: what kind of future do you see with it?”

The question about his future gave him pause. 

Keiji looked at the top of his cup, now lukewarm, and he grazed his fingernail against the edge.

Exhaling, he looked up.

“One where I can truly be of use in one of the ways I know how: books, words, and the power that they can hold. Why else would we have libraries if they weren’t so important? History is kept here—the work I could do would be small but..”

He looked down, already knowing he was saying more than what was expected of him, but he couldn’t seem to find it in him to stop.

“I’d like to think that it would be worthwhile.”

Though libraries were known for the need for respectful quiet and hushed voices, Keiji couldn’t hear the muttering of voices from outside the office Yamiji had him in, but that didn’t bother him any: Keiji couldn’t have known about the ears that were listening , how the walls were listening to every word he was saying. All he heard was a distant groan that could’ve been chalked up to the wind bearing against old fortifications.

In time, he would come to learn the subtle noises of the library itself, its occupants and visitors, and its most long-standing tenant. 

Yamiji Takeyuki was the minder of the building the library resided in, not the head of the library itself, and he knew when the library decided that it was ready for a new handler, a new librarian that would be the right fit for its space, its patrons and its residents. He heard its subtle groans, the way the air within its walls seemed to shift and change, the faint thrumming of its magic within the books, walls, and cracks that held it together. 

He resisted the urge to smile too broadly.

Outside the building, within the broad daylight, a Japanese scops owl swept from between the high rises and surrounding buildings, and flew into an open window that led straight into the library. Pale beige eyes widened at the sound of an unfamiliar voice as talons clutched at the railing of one of the tall stacks in the center of the library. The stacks themselves seemed to hum with interest.

Yamiji straightened in his seat, arms crossed against his chest—but not cross or stern looking. There was a pleased expression on his face.

“Well-said, Akaashi-kun. I think that is a fine philosophy to have for this old, steady place.” 

He stood from his chair.

“Let’s take a walk.”

*

It was when Keiji was brought into the library proper that he began to understand just what it was about this place that felt strange—odd and unusual. 

There weren’t any other workers in the library.

All there was were books and the etching of animals that were carved into the wooden pillars that held the floors up and the heavy stacks of books aloft. The tails of foxes curved around the pillars and leaves on vines wrapped around the ladders that slid across stacks. On top of the stacks were wooden sculptures of fearsome looking birds—crows, owls and eagles, a stray falcon and then what Keiji thought was a blue jay. At one point, he thought he saw the carving of a bear in the floor as Yamiji led him through the halls, explaining and showing what each and every section was for. 

So many animals seemed to watch him from within the wooden stacks, but there was not a single other person that could be seen.

Biting his inner cheek, Keiji considered his words carefully.

“..Do you get many visitors?”

Yamiji’s mouth quirked, and he huffed a laugh. “Oh, yes,” he said wryly. “It can get quite lively in here. At some point, you’ll wish that the flood of visitors would stop and you’ll want them to be _quiet_ : you’ll start to miss just how quiet it is right now, because this won’t last long. It’s always a little more quiet when the library waits for a new librarian.”

Keiji hummed thoughtfully, peering at the etching of a cat lounging on a rock, but his brows knit together at the word choice: ‘ _when the library waits_.’

**_Waits_**.

Keiji didn’t know quite how to describe how the air shifted as he took those words and their peculiar choice in: something tightening in his back and loosening all at the same time, with a feeling of anticipation. It wasn’t fear, it wasn’t the urge to run or leave at soon as possible.

It was curiosity, but altogether _more_.

The library was **massive** — much larger than its appearance gave off from the outside. Considering that the apartment complex couldn’t have been more than nine or ten floors, Keiji assumed that the library had to be maybe three floors, if he were being generous. As he was led around, it became clear to see that it had many more than that. New books, books that had been there for several years, and even books that had to have been preserved for hundreds of years if not more, held by protective glass and hidden away on high shelves, meant to be handled with the utmost care.

He could hardly believe that he was being interviewed for such a place— for a position as the _head_ of this library.

Applying had been a whim, a fancy, because he hated his job and so did Hajime, who especially hated the fact that it left Keiji so ill from being worked near to death, that they were still expecting him to be back on tip-top shape despite suffering from pneumonia. He hadn’t been that sick in a long time, not since he was a child. He hadn’t felt that helpless in years, hadn’t felt his body fail him so much, his mind tired, exhausted and ready to shut off. He saw the ad, it intrigued him, and he called on a whim because what else did he have to lose?

If he didn’t get the job, he’d stay with his current one while looking for another. Simple as that.

But as Yamiji led him around, showing him all of the stacks and the areas he would be taking care of, should he get the position, telling him of his duties, Keiji felt a sudden _want_.

He wanted it. He **_wanted_** this job.

He was feeling a pull, something he didn’t know how to quite put into words— but something was telling him, in his gut— _Stay. Stay_ ** _here_** _._

A faint groaning, not quite the moan of the wind against an old building structure, echoed through the library, and there was a flap of wings. Keiji’s head whipped over his shoulder, blinking and narrowing his eyes into the dim orange light of the hallway.

In the faint distance, he thought he saw movement, a shift in the shadows between the stacks.

“..ore thing before we finish—Akaashi-kun?”

Jolting, Keiji blinked and turned back to face Yamiji, who was peering at him, one eyebrow raised. He seemed faintly amused.

“Yes, sir?” Keiji cleared his throat, collecting himself again.

Yamiji’s faint grin widened.

“Don’t worry, I won’t keep you much longer. I’m sure some of this must sound quite boring and needless.”

Keiji’s brow furrowed. “Oh,” he said, feeling his cheeks redden and heat with faint embarrassment. He felt his muscles start to tense with worry that he’d fucked up the interview just as it was ending well, and he felt mortification spill into his body. “No. No, Sir. It’s not that, I just—I thought I saw something, is all—“

Yamiji laughed, waving him off.

“No worries, Akaashi-kun. There’s just one more thing we need to cover before I let you go, if you’ll allow this old man more of your time. Follow me, will you?”

Pursing his lips together, Keiji swallowed and gave a nod, fighting off the growing mortification as he followed the older man past the counter where books would, presumably, be checked out at. Letting his fingers drag along the smooth, if slightly aged wood, he glanced around him before he followed Yamiji into the backroom behind the counter. He didn’t hear Yamiji flip a switch, but the hall lit up regardless, and as they approached another room, the light that poured in as Yamiji opened the door, looking over his shoulder carefully at the younger man, was so bright that Keiji flinched back.

“There’s something you should know about this library, Akaashi-kun, before I offer you this position—“

He allowed Keiji to adjust to the light before he stepped to the side some, allowing Keiji room to walk through the threshold. Glancing at the older man form the corner of his eyes, Keiji gave pause, considering the weight of his words—was he really offering the position this _easily_?— before he took a cautious step further. 

When Keiji took in the room, his eyes widened and his lips parted with a sharp inhale.

Sunlight bore down from the glass ceiling about three floors high, the sky half-obscured by clouds, and half blue in the late morning. It was a stark contrast to the inner stacks of the library, which were warm and muted in their orange light. There were even more books lined on the walls, with spirals of staircases and steps winding around trees—plum, sakura, blooming trees with bright petals and peaches and other fruits— along with various other plants, the sound of a trickling stream of water the swept across the floor, and statues littered about the room. He saw some tables, benches, and a stray chair. 

Yamiji impassively took in Keiji’s wide eyes, his parted mouth, and the increasing expression of realization as the window to the ceiling creaked softly, then joined by a flap of wings.

This was not their time, but Yamiji knew they would come regardless: they always came to inspect when there was a possible new librarian.

Had it been any other kind of bird, Keiji would have noticed in an instant, but the special wings of an owl only came to Keiji’s notice when a small flock of owls, all different breeds, floated down from the ceiling and made their perches on different branches. Eyes of varying shades of yellow and gold peered at him and Keiji found himself staring back. 

Owls were often described as having eyes so piercing they were uncomfortable to look at for very long. Keiji was not one of those people who believed that. 

They looked at him, and Keiji felt intrigue, not fear. 

Yamiji smiled.

“You’re a smart young man, Akaashi-kun. You can probably already guess what makes this library so special—you would not have been able to see the ad if you weren’t meant to. Normal human eyes don’t see this place or any connection to it—not unless they want to or are meant to. The library won’t be found unless it **wants** to be.”

From within the inside of his jacket, Yamiji took out the glossy job advertisement. He held it in its palm and he beckoned Keiji to come closer. Tearing his eyes away from the owls that were watching from their perches— a scops, a snowy, and even a dark feathered eagle owl, an exceptionally rare sight in Tokyo, leaving him to half-expect to see and hear a Great Horned swooping down, ready to make itself known— Keiji took another step forward, eyes on the piece of paper in the older man’s hand.

His eyes widened as the paper shifted, twisted, and began to reshape itself. From paper, it lengthened and hardened into metal as it became a set of keys.

“With this position, the books here, the patrons and all of the inhabitants of this library will be in your care. You will assist them as needed, organize the books and stacks, fetch requests and keep this place safe. You will help to keep it running, as it has for centuries.”

Yamiji reached out his arm, and he lowered the keys into Keiji’s palm: they felt light in his hands despite how heavy they looked. Light, yet Keiji could feel the weight of them and what they represented. He curled his fingers around them, his heart beat raging in his ears. Swallowing hard, he looked up.

“Why would you trust me with this?”

His tone was breathy, quiet, almost borderline hysterical— and there was a twisting in his chest and gut, but it wasn’t the same kind that left him in cold sweats when the work at the marketing agency became too much, it wasn’t that same brand of anxiousness— no, this was something else.

_Your parents will say they’re just silly stories, Keiji. But me, you and Sachi? We know better— You know already, Keiji—_

Yamiji smiled.

“Because if you didn’t know magic was real, you would’ve never found this library in the first place.”

_—Magic is as real as you and I._

Keiji’s grip on the keys tightened. 

The flock of owls perched on the half-bloomed cherry trees peered at him, cooing softly amongst themselves as the young man considered the keys in his palm, unable to read the thoughts and emotions on his face—younger than the typical librarian they’d had in the past few decades, and yet, as soon as he walked in through the door, there was a feeling of something right, how he seemed to fit into the halls so easily, how he did not scream when he saw the etchings in the library walls and pillars move, that he did not try to run when Yamiji brought him into the aviary—

They wondered what drew this young human man, seemingly possessing no magic of his own, here.

And they wondered: what would this library’s longest resident think of him?

Pursing his lips, Keiji’s brow furrowed as he contemplated and he lightly jangled the keys in his palm before tightening his fingers around them. Closing his eyes, Keiji exhaled slowly. Then, he opened his eyes.

They were resolute.

“When can I start?”

*

“You know,” Hajime said nonchalantly, “You could still just commute from here.”

Keiji hummed as he folded the last of his sweaters into a modest suitcase. There wasn’t much for him to pack, thankfully: besides books, he wasn’t the sort to hold onto things. He closed his suitcase shut, adjusted his glasses and peered at Hajime.

“Is this your way of telling me that you’d miss me too much?” He rose his eyebrows, fighting a smile. “Are you telling me not to go because you’ll miss my glorious company?”

Hajime snorted, glowering at Keiji even as he slung one of Keiji’s bags over his shoulder. “Don’t be a smartass, Keiji—although I know it’s hard for you—“ he drawled, earning a rolled eye from Keiji. “I don’t care how old you are, I’ll still put you in a headlock for your _sass_.”

Keiji propped his suitcase up. He peered at his half-brother.

His normally placid face betrayed him only a little as he deadpanned, “Can you reach me from down there?”

Hajime immediately dropped Keiji’s bag from his shoulder. “ _You little shit,_ get over here—“

Keiji sometimes wondered if it was a curse or a blessing that he didn’t meet Hajime until he was sixteen, that he only knew about Hajime’s existence because his older half-brother had just turned eighteen and his mother thought it was time that Hajime knew about his existence— a curse, because Keiji had been an only child until that point, and making friends had never been an easy venture for him. He was too quiet, not out of shyness, but because there was nothing he had to say, and he didn’t make any strides in trying to make them actively, even when he played volleyball for a little while. It hadn’t occurred to him how lonely it’d been until after Hajime, an older brother in practice and at heart, came all the way from Miyagi to meet him, angry and upset, not at Keiji for being the reason Hajime never met his biological father, but at the fact that he’d never known that Keiji existed. 

There was simply no question to Hajime that he was going to accept Keiji as a half-brother; it was _that_ easy for him. And it had been far easier than Keiji expected to slot into each other’s lives.

On the other, a blessing, because he didn’t have to grow up with Hajime’s nothing-to-sniff-at muscular arms putting him into a loose headlock, despite Keiji’s inches on him, and roughly messing with his hair. The torture lasted for at least two minutes before Hajime relented, letting Keiji go to smooth down his hair with a disgruntled expression, all the while Hajime snickered at his plight.

“Well,” said Keiji primly, giving his half-brother a dry look as he smoothed down the front of his cardigan. “I certainly won’t miss _that_.”

“Yeah, you will,” said Hajime, eyes crinkling with a wry smirk. “That’s why you **_will_** be coming by every weekend to hang out and have dinner, got it? You and I both know you can barely cook for yourself enough, so you should be getting at _least_ one or two full meals a week.”

It softened into a grin when Keiji couldn’t quite muster the ability to stay pretend-annoyed at him, and a ghost of a smile flickered across his face. Even so, he couldn’t quite hold back his need to be at least a bit of a smartass with Hajime and sighed loudly.

“Yes, sir. I wouldn’t dream of otherwise.”

Hajime gave his bicep a light love tap with his knuckles and gathered up the last of Keiji’s bags. He was already out the open door to their—Hajime’s apartment and Keiji lingered by the doorway. He peered into the sitting room of the apartment he and Hajime had shared since college, the ensuing four years post college, felt his chest twist and exhaled. He closed the door to the apartment gently, already locked, and made his way downstairs where the rented car was waiting.

The keys to the library and his new apartment, nestled in the front pockets of his jeans, shifted against his thigh: they felt utterly weightless and heavy all in the same breath.

Hajime knew that he wanted a new job. Knew long before Keiji was so overworked he was wracked with pneumonia that Keiji had started thinking about different career avenues. Hajime had been nothing but supportive and his protective anger that Keiji had been brought to that state was clear as day, he’d even helped him buy new clothes for his interviews. As such, when Keiji told him that he’d been given the head librarian position, Hajime had been elated for him and then hesitant when Keiji further added one more detail—

—Since he was the head librarian, he was expected to live in an apartment in the same building. Rent was included in his salary, the apartment was furnished, and he would not need to pay for utilities.

Had Keiji not known the truth about Fukurodani Toshokan, it would have been the immediate sign of a scam. Since he knew, and with Yamiji’s explanation about why he needed to live right above the library, it didn’t alarm him: it made perfect sense.

However—

Hajime waited for about twenty minutes before he turned to glance at Keiji from the corner of his eye, mouth in a severe, worried line. “..Be honest with me, Keiji: are you _sure_ about this?”

Keiji resisted the urge to sigh, exasperated and frustrated.

Logically, he knew that it made sense for Hajime to be skeptical. As soon as Keiji reluctantly told him that this job required Keiji to live above the library, he could see the alarm bells ring on Hajime’s face and he had to brace himself to the nigh-interrogation about the safety and legitimacy of this job opportunity. In any other situation, Keiji would’ve been just as skeptical, just as suspicious, and he knew that Hajime was sincere in his concern. His heart warmed at that brotherly concern, swelling when Hajime started to relent, rubbing the back of his head and muttering, _I just want you to be safe, okay, dammit?_

The other part of him was frustrated, mixed with guilt— because there were other stipulations and conditions regarding the case of his employment. Almost all of which were informed to him during the last hour of his interview, sitting at a table in the middle of that backroom aviary.

One of those stipulations was that, unless under special circumstances, he could not tell anyone else about the true nature of the library.

Keiji chewed on his guilt before he looked at Hajime, utterly serious. “I’m sure, Hajime.”

Hajime didn’t respond, but his forehead crinkled and his jaw set. Keiji could tell by his face that he still wasn’t convinced yet.

Rubbing his fingertips together anxiously, nails scraping against one another, Keiji paused before continuing, “Yamiji-san is going to meet us there, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind letting you have a look around, if you want to be sure.”

The harsh lines of Hajime’s face gradually relaxed, olive eyes darting to glance at Keiji after making their last turn: they studied him, his face, the way Keiji’s fingers were folded together, his posture.

Upon meeting Hajime (who’d been rather nervous to meet her) Keiji’s mother had laughed and smiled as she remarked at how, despite not having grown up together, both of them seemed to have an uncanny ability to observe other people and their intricacies. It’d only taken a few months of knowing each other for Hajime to understand the way Keiji conveyed his feelings through subtle body language, how his fingers gave away when he was feeling particularly anxious or nervous, and Keiji grew to understand the subtle ways in which Hajime’s forehead wrinkled and his brows furrowed when he was confused, angry, or concerned. Both were just as able to read other people.

Looking at Keiji now, Hajime would be able to tell that there were no reservations he was feeling about this position, none whatsoever. He was fully confident in it.

Hajime’s eyes flickered back to the road as he made their final turn and eventual stop. 

“Wouldn’t hurt to take a short look around, I guess.”

Keiji hid a smile as he looked out the window, the familiar facade of the apartment complexes and outside of the library rolling into view.

A saker falcon clung to one of the window railings and tilted his head down to watch as the two half-brothers unloaded the car, second eyelids flickering only when one of the doors to the library opened up and Yamiji’s wan smile fell into place.

Hajime crossed his arms, a stern frown on his face, albeit making sure to be as polite and civil as need be, and bowed when Keiji did the same. Yamiji inclined his head, and his faint smile grew into a grin.

“Ready to see your new apartment?”

It took about another twenty minutes before Hajime finally started to relax when he saw the building itself, the living conditions, and met the man himself. The etchings in the walls and stacks were quiet this time, unmoving and still, and the lights were off, it was as if a hush were lingering above the endless rows, nervous and tentative at the newcomer that didn’t know anything about the library’s true nature. Keiji was nervous at first but after fifteen minutes, his anxiety ebbed, more so when Yamiji and Hajime shared a very formal nod of acknowledgment and a firm handshake.

Keiji was simultaneously pleased and hopeful that they would never have to meet again if he could help it.

“Once you get more settled in, I’ll try coming to visit during my lunch hours.”

Keiji somehow managed not to flinch, instead choosing to rub his mildly aching wrists: Keiji didn’t have much when it came to sentimental belongings, but his boxes of books were heavy to have to carry up to the sixth floor that Keiji was living on. Thank god for the elevator.

“Of course, I look forward to it.”

Yamiji had left them to unload after briefly showing Hajime and Keiji around about his living quarters (and some of the library for Hajime: Keiji wondered what he saw), so it was just the two of them. They’d spent the past two hours unpacking most of the kitchen and living room items, although there wasn’t too much that needed to be done. The apartment was furnished, with comfortable looking furniture and general kitchen things that an average twenty-six year old bachelor might need. Hajime’s eyebrows had risen high and he’d whistled, impressed.

“Nice digs,” he’d said, earning a snort from Keiji.

It was a nice apartment: it felt lived in. 

Because it had been. This apartment had been used by the librarians before Keiji. He wondered if they’d brought the furniture, and when they had. He wondered who his predecessor was—and why they left.

It would be nice to have Hajime over here, but Keiji would have to plan carefully— another stipulation in his contract. 

Hajime squeezed his shoulder gently, and a small smile grew on his half-brother’s normally stoic face, softening his features. Keiji couldn’t help but offer one in return.

After another hour, Keiji was finished unpacking and Hajime had left, leaving with a promise to of course see him next weekend for dinner. He waved his half-brother goodbye and watched until the car made a turn and disappeared. The air around the library shifted, as if shucking off a shroud or a disguise, as Keiji walked back inside, and the lights inside the hallways lit up with that warm orange glow on their own.

Two hours before sundown, Yamiji knocked on his apartment door. In his arms, he was holding a small wooden box. His expression was serious, almost grave.

“I need you to follow a special set of instructions, Akaashi-kun— as your first duty as the Head Librarian.”

Yamiji held out the wooden box, and Keiji looked at it for a beat before he took it in his hands. It was light and there were smooth grooves in the wood that resembled feathers, curling and coiling around each other in a gentle pattern. His stomach tightened in anxious anticipation and he listened, lifting his eyes to the older man, as he waited for further instruction.

“Before midnight comes, open this box, and let the item inside it fall to the floor exactly at midnight. It has to happen right at might: there is a clock by your nightstand that will tell you when it’s midnight, sunset and sunrise. Always stay attentive to that. Do you understand?”

Keiji pursed his lips and his fingers tightened around the box. The wood felt warm.

“Yes, sir.”

Yamiji faintly smiled.

“I’ll be leaving for some time on business, but if you need anything be sure to ask for Sawamura, Washio or Yamagata—you’ll know who they are when you meet them. They’ll make sure we stay in communication. If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to ask any of them, or the others.”

Folding his hands behind this back, Yamiji stepped out of the doorway of Keiji’s new apartment.

“Welcome to Fukurodani Toshokan, Akaashi-kun. I hope you stay with us for a long while.”

*

It was an hour before sunset that Yamiji Tatsuyuki began to leave the library grounds. He made sure that the leaders of each group, from Sawamura to Ushijima and Kita and so forth, knew that the new librarian had been hired, that he’d moved in, and to make sure to welcome him gracefully. That he’d not run out the library as soon as Komori shifted from a weasel into a human form spoke well enough that Akaashi was able to handle the library’s true nature. When he found out that Akaashi lived with a brother, he was somewhat worried, but was mollified upon meeting him and seeing how swiftly Akaashi covered his tracks to keep the secret of the library safe.

He knew that he could trust Akaashi to take care of the old place while he was away. He was often away, less so in recent months after the last librarian had up and quit.

Yamiji hoped that Akaashi would last far longer than the former did.

Speaking with Konoha one more time to make sure that, when Akaashi opened the box later that evening, all of the intricate facets of that situation were fully explained to the poor man, Yamiji packed up his things and made his way to leave out the door. He had little more than a modest duffel bag, which could hold an almost infinite amount of things inside: the Mary Poppins joke had not been lost on him, as the owls had often snickered amongst themselves. This time, as he prepared to leave, there was no hesitation. Every time he’d left the library in the hands of its new Head, he’d been a little worried about leaving them there to their own devices in a world that was still so new to them and could be overwhelming for the ill-prepared. This time, there was no such thing.

As he reached the doorway, Yamiji placed his hand against the wooden frame.

“You really like this one, don’t you?” he asked.

The library hummed beneath his touch—in the groan of the wood and stone, he heard a faint fluttering echo of wings and a pleased response. The light within the hallways seemed to grow a little brighter, flickering with warmth, and a faint rumble reverberated through the foundation of the library—it was a happy tremble.

Yamiji could not recall the last time the library was _this_ happy.

The library had staked its claim as soon as Akaashi Keiji walked through the thresholds of the library. Yamiji knew as soon the young man walked through the door that the library had made its choice.

Yamiji did not choose the librarians. Only the library did.

And the library had not ever loved its librarian quite this quickly.

He wondered what it was about Akaashi Keiji that had him deemed so special by the library. Perhaps…

The library had been watching over its longest resident for this long, caring for him, doing its best by him while not being able to go beyond the confines of his curse— maybe it saw something in Akaashi Keiji that _knew_ — 

—Knew that its most beloved tenant would be done right by him.

*

Burning the midnight oil well into the evening wasn’t a new venture for Keiji, but there was a new sort of anticipation this time.

Getting used to the fact that magic of all things existed, that his Great Aunts were right, had come much easier than he thought possible: it was another to hold something magical in his hands, to put it on the table in the kitchen, and resist the temptation to look inside. It reminded him of the jewelry boxes that his grandparents had passed down from their ancestors, filled with fine gems, small stones, and even some calligraphy brushes that had been nigh sacred to his great-great grandfather. The wood was fine, the designs of the carvings intricate and careful. There seemed to be silver foil that was painted into the feathery design. It was a beautiful box, so beautiful he felt afraid to touch it.

By the time midnight drew near, Keiji’s stomach twisted in knots and fiddling with his fingers as he paced around the kitchen, the box had been left on his bed, covered by a blanket as he tried to distract himself and get accustomed to his new living situation. When the clock struck eleven, Keiji kneeled on his bed mattress and stared at the box. Not for the first time since Yamiji’s orders that afternoon did he wonder what was inside.

At around 11:45, he gave in to the temptation.

The skylight window was left slightly ajar to let the late April breeze in. The sweltering Tokyo heat had yet to come and there was a faint chill on the air, still, pleasant and clear. The moon a waning gibbous hovered like a star above the apartment complexes and skyscrapers, pouring in a gentle light into his apartment. The silver foil of the box glimmered under its glow and stuttered when Keiji’s fingers grasped the lid of the box.

Holding his fingers, he glimpsed at the clock by his nightstand.

11:50.

Sucking in a breath, Keiji pursed his lips and lifted the lid, the weight of the box sliding under the pressure of his grip. The bottom of the box fell away smoothly as he lifted the lid above it completely.

Hovering the lid above the box, Keiji exhaled, and slowly moved it away. Leaning forward, he looked into the contents of the box.

Inside, there was a single feather.

Pressed between corners, tip to tip, was a feather with a brown base, darker brown streaks, the hollow shaft a pale grey.

Keiji didn’t feel himself lowering the lid to his bed as he tilted his head, brows furrowed, as he looked at the feather.

There was nothing else in the box.

Perplexed, Keiji looked at the clock.

11:53.

Feeling his heart start to race, Keiji picked up the lower half of the box and adjusted his position on his mattress. Still on his knees, he kept careful watch of the clock on his nightstand. He could feel his fingers trembling, just the slightest—with what? He couldn’t be sure.

Anticipation? Anxiety? Perhaps a bit of fear and trepidation, a worry that perhaps he’d gotten in over his head with this new job, but most of all—

Curiosity.

11:57.

Keiji wondered.

11:58.

He wondered what significance this feather had. He wondered why Yamiji gave him such specific directions. He wondered why his heart was hammering so tightly in his chest.

11:59.

Closing his eyes, he exhaled.

12:00.

The clock gave a sharp, soft ping of alert to signify the arrival of midnight and Keiji’s eyes snapped open in time with the movement of his body.

Lifting up on his knees, digging his toes into the comforter and twisting his hands, Keiji turned the box upside down with a little jerk to dislodge the precious item inside, and he watched the feather float to the floor.

In a patch of moonlight, the feather swayed and danced all the way to the wood floor. The seconds seemed to stretch like fresh pounded mochi before the curve of the feather touched the floor.

Unraveling like fine satin fabric, the feather became more than one, stretching into full wings that flapped with little noise, unfolding into primary feathers that shimmered a rich brown flecked with silver, grey and gold. Soft beige stretched into legs and then black talons, and horn-like shapes stretched from the head forming, and Keiji found himself staring into a pair of bright yellow-gold eyes, a glowing rim around large black pupils.

It was like staring into the center of two stars.

A deep, woody hoot shot through the open space of Akaashi Keiji’s apartment, and a Great Horned Owl flapped its wings in joy, the dotted brown spots in the feathers by the eyes along its pale face seeming to curl in a facsimile of a grin.

Mouth parted in shock, in awe, stunned stupid and silent, Keiji watched as the owl shot for the open window, its claws scraping against the glass and railing as it flew out— as if releasing energy pent up for far too long.

Keiji, almost falling to the floor in his haste to get off of his bed and feet nearly tangling in the sheets, rushed to the window and watched as the owl flew further and further away, until it had completely disappeared into the darkness of the city below.

The box was left on the bed, forgotten.

*

It had been five months since such a joyous hoot had been heard.

It wasn’t the longest time that joy had been stifled, but that did not stop the Horned Owl from letting out barks, screeches and hoots of elation, as if he’d been trapped inside the box for years, while he flew circles around the library complex, beckoning his kin inside the walls. Pedestrians burning the midnight oil, for work, for pleasure, for a sense of purpose, looked up when the Horned Owl made his perch on a street lamp post. His yellow-gold eyes seemed to glow, even under the city lights, as he stared with anticipation and let another deep-throated hoot to garner his friends’ attention.

If he could grin, he would’ve at the echo of seven hoots, screeches and barks being returned to him.

While he waited, his attention was drawn back to the window at the top floor from which he’d flown out. With a slow blink and swivel of his neck, the Horned Owl cocked his head as the figure in the window seemed to look down at the city below—while his vision was superior to a typical human’s, he couldn’t quite see the man’s face or his features from this far. Gradually, after a beat, the man in the window stepped back, and after another minute, the dim light in the apartment turned off.

In his haste, he hadn’t even stopped to get a good look at the new librarian.

The Horned Owl blinked once again, gave a little hoot to himself that would’ve resembled a human shrug, and rustled his feathers.

Oh, well. He’d see him again at sunrise. It was nothing to feel too guilty about. He simply hoped that the new librarian kept the window open, it would make for an easier return. Idly, he wondered how long this one would last.

The last one had only lasted about four months. It’d taken even longer to find a replacement.

He’d been in that box since.

The slivers of wings cutting through the dark drew the horned owl’s attention before he could slip into one of his lower moods and he perked up, letting out another happy croon of a hoot. Fluffing out his wings in greeting, he hopped to the side to give room to the Snowy Owl, the scops, and the massive eagle owl, only to promptly nuzzle them with joy.

The scops owl shook his head and gave a squinty eyed glance, made a little barking noise, and ruffled his feathers. The short eared owl cooed and hopped to the railing of a window awning. He gave a call—

_Where do you wanna go?_  


If he could, he would grin.

The horned owl spread his wings. His chest feathers spread as he gave a loud hoot of joy.

_Everywhere_!

The seven owls, the makeshift parliament, took off into flight with the horned owl as he leapt into the air, his silent wings leading him towards anything that might have changed in the past five months: the most freedom he ever felt.

The wind felt amazing against his feathers. Idly, he wondered if he would ever get to feel how the skin felt on his bare flesh, under the warm gaze of the sun.

He hadn’t felt the touch of the sun in so long.

Maybe he’d forgotten.

*

It took Keiji at least another hour before he finally managed to fall into a restless sleep.

The list of instructions that Yamiji left behind for him was extensive: all of the rooms, halls, the stacks and what books went where, the duties that he had to do every day, tasks for specific days, times, the few nights he would have to be present and working in the library—all of it contained in a book that was currently sitting on Keiji’s nightstand. He managed to spend at least twenty minutes browsing through it, memorizing all that he would have to do in the morning, before he fell asleep. He managed to gently close it with a bookmark in place before he turned over and the exhaustion took hold of him.

The box had been placed on the kitchen table.

Even though his body was exhausted, something kept Keiji from entirely sinking into his bed and letting the blackness of dreamless sleep take him.

When he closed his eyes, eyelids far too heavy and exhausted to stay open, he saw wings and bright gold. In his sleep, Keiji saw nothing but those wings, the feather, and the color gold that seared into him, looking past his skin, bones, seeing the core of him that no one else had been able to see.

That day in the backroom, the aviary with the flock of owls and the stray cats that looked at Keiji from beneath trees, tables and chairs, and the black furred weasel with two little marks above its right eye that had more intelligence in its stare than any animal should have, Keiji heard how those animals could speak just like him, dress like him, shift their bodies to exist out in the world, Komori smiling and offering his hand for a shake after a single slender leap where short claws became legs and feet—Keiji saw so many things that would have shocked the average person into oblivion and denial.

But the shock did not last.

He looked at Komori’s hand and he’d felt an urge to smile as he shook the kamaitachi’s hand, wishing that he could tell Aunt Naomi that he truly had believed her all along and now he had proof. There were many sleepless and half-slept nights to follow after that interview, his body thrumming with the overload of new information, and certainly not because it was bad. It was so _much_ and Keiji felt a strange hunger to know more, a hunger he hadn’t felt. It was difficult to sleep when he wanted nothing more than to go back, but—well, he had to leave his job first and tell Hajime as much as he could without giving away with truth about Fukurodani. There was so much he had to do first.

Now that he was here, settled in, it felt surreal to even try to sleep at all: it felt far too mundane for such a magical, unusual place. Only did reading manage to lull him to sleep, uneasy and restless as it was. 

How could he hope to sleep peacefully after seeing a feather become an owl?

Even so, the exhausted human body could overtake the whims of a mind that was moving far too fast for its vessel and force it to quiet down, if only for a little while. Keiji was falling into a deep sleep by the time 3 in the morning came, and he could’ve slept for six hours more. The mattress of the bed provided was soft, but not so soft he couldn’t feel it: it curled around his body as he slept, and the clench in his jaw had long since loosened, evening out his breath.

Ten minutes before sunrise, there was a loud rapping noise against the window.

Face buried into the side of his pillow, Keiji’s brows knit together in irritation, but with a soft sound, he simply nestled into his blankets and pressed further into his pillow.

There was a pause, and then the tapping noise came again. This time, much more insistent and louder. It was almost frantic.

Keiji’s legs curled up to his stomach and his teeth started to grind in his sleep.

_Tap tap TAP—!_

“ ** _HOOT_**!”

There was an audible crack in Keiji’s joints as he shot up in bed, the blankets falling around his hips as he glared blearily into the dark. “What the _fuck_ —“ he muttered, speech still somewhat slurred as he rubbed his eye with the heel of his palm.

The loud tapping continued, now definitely frantic and the hooting sound grew even louder. In the dark and the faint glow of sunrise in the distance, the sun not yet up, Keiji looked at the window adjacent to his bed and slaw a blurry brown form flapping at him through the glass. 

The owl behind the window hooted again, now annoyed sounding, as Keiji sat up. The sleepiness cleared out of his eyes and he reached for his glasses, nearly dropping them in his haste to put them on. Even in the dark, once he could properly see—

He met the same yellow-gold eyes that’d stared through him at midnight.

The great horned owl paused in its tapping to stare at him, once it realized that Keiji was awake and looking at him, its spread out wings slowly folding back against its sides. Unblinking, the owl cocked its head to the side at an almost perfect angle, and there was an intelligence there that was distinctly far more than animal or raptor that had Keiji’s breath stalled.

This time, when the owl tapped its beak against the window, it was still loud, but not as frantic as before.

If Keiji were to call it anything, it’d be excited.

It took another couple of rapid taps against the glass before Keiji realized that that owl was asking to be let inside. 

“Fine, fine,” he grumbled, exhaling a sharp, tired sigh as he rose onto his knees. His muscles twitched with the ache for sleep, exhausted, as he stretched his arm up to grab the rope that moved the skylight window. It creaked quietly as he pulled down and allowed the window to open.

The owl gave a delighted sounding hoot as it hopped inside, and its black talons latched onto the edge of the built in bookshelf next to Keiji’s bed. He’d yet to put his own books there. A relief, because now that Keiji could better see the owl, those talons looked sharp even from a distance. They could have easily torn the hardback covers without even realizing.

_A Great Horned Owl can squeeze from 200 to 500 pounds per square inch, making it the strongest of all of the raptors in terms of grip._

Perhaps it was the haze of sleep still in his body, but Keiji didn’t feel any fear as he looked at the owl, nor any sense of anxiety. Tired as he was, as eerie as such bright gold eyes could be in the dark, they made him feel… safe.

Lowering down so that he was seated on his heels, Keiji let the skylight window close on its own with a soft click and a half-smile curled on his lips. 

Five minutes before sunrise.

The owl’s second eyelids blinked and Keiji watched, bemused, as the owl’s chest feathers flared out as it gave a deep-throated hoot. A huff of laughter left Keiji when the owl—such a dignified looking creature in most pieces of art and photography—hopped onto his bed, fluttering its feathers. It tilted its head up at him and let out a cooing sound, eyes wide and almost childish looking underneath the severe line of feathers that imitated eyebrows. 

He rose an eyebrow when the owl hopped closer, close enough that there was only inches between his knee at the owl. It looked up at him expectantly. Then, it gave another hoot, tilting its head up at him, stretching out its neck.

Unable to contain a smile and his self-control, Keiji reached out and gently traced his fingertip against the underside of the owl’s neck, stroking against soft feathers with only the slightest bit of pressure.

It seemed to be the right decision, because the owl’s eyes closed and it tilted its head so that Keiji could better scratch at the feathers under its chin. Lifting his other hand, Keiji curled his fingers around the owl’s head and experimentally brushed the edges of the feathers that made up its horns.

Like a wisp of cloud.

Keiji’s smile widened.

Two minutes.

Keiji could’ve fallen asleep just like that, with a great horned owl’s head between his hands, seeming to lap up all of the attention Keiji was willing to offer him, exhaustion of the past twenty four hours getting to him again. With the orange purple glow of the sun starting to break through the skyline, it would’ve been the most opportune moment to get a couple more hours of sleep before starting his first real day.

He was so exhausted and sleep-ridden, he didn’t even stop to think about the significance of the feather.

One minute.

The owl snapped his yellow-gold eyes open.

With a sudden sharp, fluttering hoot, the owl shuffled out of Keiji’s arms and towards the edge of his bed, much to Keiji’s confusion, and the owl leaned forward, flaring its feathers and wings out as it rose its head towards the window—where the dawn was beginning to break.

The owl looked over the span of its wing, and Keiji swore that there was an odd glimmer to its one visible eye.

Even the feathers of its face seemed to shift and shutter.

It looked like a grin.

Golden light began to spill from the window, shaded with pink and purple, and Keiji started when the owl flapped its wings and flew upwards. Not to the still open window, but towards the ceiling. It let out another hoot with a swoop of its wings and the sunlight, warm, orange and soaking through the window panes and wooden floor—

—It was watching a starburst.

The sudden shock of light, gold oil paint splashing into the scene, then twisting with silver, white and deep gray as the brown disappeared. It almost burned Keiji’s eyes if he weren’t spellbound by it, just as he was the night before when he watched the feather shift and turn.

It happened so swiftly, quickly, that if Keiji were to blink just once, he might’ve missed it—how the owl’s body seamlessly shifted from winged, talons, beaked and feathered into sun-kissed flesh, sculpted with muscle, and a flash of silver-gray hair—

Gold.

“Hey hey hey!”

Like a painting, watercolor still drying on a canvas, the oils and watercolors merging together and converging on the white with each movement and gesture, Keiji watched an owl turn into a man as the first light of the sunrise rose over the top of buildings and poured through the window.

The floor groaned at the impact of the man—the _man_ , whose feet had just been fearsome talons seconds before—landing his feet on the floor, heels first, and his eyes—so so **_gold_** , just as bright, if not brighter than the sun—closed. With a wide grin, he drank in a large inhale and breathed out, stretching his arms around as he took in the sunlight. There was the soft crack and pop of bones and joints with the movement: stiff, moving back into place after a long time of being cooped up in one position, the getting used to of limbs instead of wings after months. The warm sunlight as his skin made the flesh gleam, like metal.

Keiji could barely blink.

_A star._

_A star, before my eyes—_

The bed creaked underneath him as Keiji stretched out a leg so that he could put a foot on the floor and the owl-man looked over his should and blinked widely, as if just noticing he was there for the first time. The hardwood floor was cold against the skin of Keiji’s feet and he sucked in a breath when the silver-haired man fixed bright yellow-gold eyes on him—eyes far too gold and far too bright to belong to any normal human.

Keiji didn’t know what expression he was making as he stared at the man who’d been an owl just minutes before: wide-eyed and slack-jawed? Or his usual dispassionate expression? Who could say— he could barely find it in himself to look away at all.

“Whoa.”

Shoulders jerking at the sudden sound, Keiji was brought back to attention and was reminded that this exchange was hardly one-sided, and took the chance to properly take in the other man’s expression.

His eyes were wide, eyebrows raised high on his forehead, the same shade of silver that was partially standing up as if by a gust of wind, slightly mussed and streaked with black at the roots. There was a borderline childish sense of wonder to his expression and the glimmer in his eyes. His voice was deep and had a slightly rough quality to it that seemed to be holding back a growl of excitement: as if it hadn’t been used in quite some time. There was something even _boyish_ to it: pure and earnest in all of its imperfections.

All this, Keiji got from one word.

From one glance at the other man, he also took in the sharp, handsome lines of his face: perfectly sculpted and confident. No one should have been able to make such a silly looking hairstyle look _good_ —No one should be able to have eyes quite that intense—

And those eyes were fixed on him so intently that it felt almost uncomfortably intimate. Keiji was suddenly becoming all too aware that, per his preference when he went to sleep, he still had no shirt on.

The other man’s parted mouth, jaw hanging open somewhat as if gaping at something that Keiji couldn’t see, closed only to have a bright grin spread on his face, making the corners of his eyes crinkle. With the faint orange and purple light of the sunrise through the window, even his skin seemed to glow gold, and the silver of his hair stood out more. He took a step closer, and Keiji was privileged to see even more of the man’s clear skin up front, while he was stupidly stuck in place on his mattress, unable to find it in himself to move.

Then, the man got close enough and leaned in that there was only a few inches separating them. The light of the sun bounced off of his skin.

“You must be the new librarian, huh!”

Swallowing hard, Keiji nodded, wordless. It was becoming increasingly difficult to speak at all, and his ribcage was sore from the sudden race in his pulse.

The man’s grin widened and his gold eyes seemed to glimmer with excitement. The sun was rising higher in the window.

And several things began to dawn on Keiji as the sleepiness faded from him.

First, that this was indeed the owl that he’d released the night before, an owl that’d been a feather. An owl that he’d just spent minutes cuddling in his lap, against his chest, as if it were some domesticated pet.

Then, that he was still bare from the waist up.

“Hey..”

Then, there was the other important thing that was steadily dawning on Keiji.

Intent gold eyes fixed on his face, widened and absolutely certain.

The man was completely and utterly naked.

“Will you marry me?”

*

There were multiple things that happened in sequence.

It was so quiet in the apartment that you could hear a pin drop to the floor. The city was only just starting to wake up to the morning, the dawn breaking into a bright yellow light that began to illuminate the blue. The man with silver hair and dark roots simply looked at Keiji with bright, clear eyes, not at all flustered and seemingly at all aware of his nakedness: he stood there as if this were his room as much as it was Keiji.

As soon as the words left his mouth, Keiji felt everything come to a screeching halt. For a moment, his mind went perfectly blank: a rarity for him.

He stared. The other man blinked at him, still smiling and expectant. The words slowly began to dawn on him.

Then, the sheer nakedness of the other man set in. His eyes dipped and stopped just above the man’s waist.

He felt his face _burn_.

The man squawked when the pillow flew across the room and into his face. He squawked again when a second pillow landed into his chest.

Apparently Keiji’s volleyball skills were still relatively active and useful, if rusty and unpolished after years of no use.

“ **Who** asks something like _that_!?” Keiji shouted, the menace of his expression off-put by how red his face was and how he was making a point to not look at the man anywhere below the collarbone. “Especially someone you just met and don’t know the name of!”

“Actually! I do have an explana— _OUGH_ —“

Cut off by another pillow thrown his way, the man then squeaked when Keiji grabbed a spare sweatshirt and threw it at him, covering his face entirely.

“I don’t even know who you are! Who are you! _And why are you naked—!_ ”

It took another few minutes of the silver-haired man doing his best to calm Keiji down enough to stop throwing whatever spare clothing or pillows at him, but Keiji refused to look at him directly until the man had clothes on of some sort. In his haste, the best he could come up with were a pair of sweat pants that weren’t long enough for the man’s legs and a shirt that just barely fit him. Keiji did his best to not look very long at the visible musculature of the other man. The exhaustion that started settling in made it easier.

Keiji made himself coffee after he dressed himself, and rubbed the exhaustion out of his eyes, squinting over the rim of his glasses as the obnoxious light of morning poured in through the windows. The birds outside the window were chirping loudly now and there were a couple of hours until he had to start his shift at the library downstairs: his very first day on the job. The jitters started to settle in as he slowly turned towards the silver-haired man, who was preoccupied with poking around what few things Keiji had unpacked, taking the sights in with wide, curious gold eyes.

Pursing his lips, Keiji cleared his throat to get the man’s attention.

Blinking, the man looked up at him, attentive and smiling, as if Keiji hadn’t just thrown about four pillows at him and several pieces of clothing that didn’t quite fit on him: he was remarkably nonchalant and affable. His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled.

_“Will you marry me?”_

Willing the creeping blush on his face to go away because it was far too early for that and there was so much Keiji didn’t know about this whole situation, Keiji awkwardly pushed a cup of coffee towards the other man, who peered at it curiously.

“I apologize,” he started, chagrined, “For my… behavior earlier. I didn’t exactly expect to have a guest _this_ early in the morning.”

The man gave shrug, took a sip of the coffee, made a face at the bitter taste, only to brighten when Keiji moved the little carton of half and half his way. “It’s no problem! You weren’t the first, and you probably won’t be the last, anyway! At least it was just pillows and not a clock or a TV!”

The man laughed at himself while Keiji stared, flatly, at the word choice. After some internal deliberation, he decided not to question it further.

“So…” He pressed his lips together. “Is that normal for you?”

“Hm!” hummed the other man, nodding and looking far too cheerful this early in the morning. “Pretty much! That’s why you gotta leave the windows open every night so that I can come in more easily in the morning, and it’s why there’s so many windows for the apartment floors: makes it easy to come in and out.”  
  
A wry look curled on the edge of his mouth. Keiji was struck by how easily he said it, as if he were reciting lines from memory: as if he’d said this multiple times before.

And it suddenly struck Keiji that he still didn’t know the man’s name.

“Yamiji told you about the feather, didn’t he?” He said. At Keiji’s quiet nod, he gave a huff of laughter and crossed his arms over his chest. “I guess he didn’t think to tell you further, but it makes sense! It’s kinda confusing unless you hear it from me. Curses are tricky like that, but even I don’t quite get it myself still!”

_Curses_?

“Maybe,” Keiji began, “Although, I’ve seen quite a few interesting sights even before meeting you when I accepted this job. I didn’t think to expect a naked man in my apartment though.”

The deadpan sarcasm came out unwitting, but the man didn’t seem to take any offense, laughing instead. It made the muscles in Keiji’s back release from their tension. He had a nice laugh: full-bodied and almost cackling, but full of mirth.

“Sorry! It’s kinda part of the whole deal, though: I kinda don’t fit into my clothes anymore as an owl and they don’t transform with me, so you should probably leave some clothes out for me if ya don’t mind. It gets cold in here!”

Keiji gave him a brief stare.

“…I don’t think my clothes will quite fit you,” He said flatly. “I think you might just rip them. Please try to avoid doing that.”

The man made a whining noise that would be incredibly unbecoming on anyone else, muttering mean under his breath, although there wasn’t any heart in it: but somehow, the childishness suited him. 

Seeing his chance to get a name, Keiji swept in before he could be interrupted again.

“Yamiji-san told me about the feather and what I had to do at midnight, but he didn’t tell me your name, I’m afraid,” he said. Sitting up straight, he flexed his fingers over the handle of his coffee cup and looked at the other man directly, meeting inquisitive golden eyes. “I’m Akaashi Keiji, and as you probably already know, I’m the new Head Librarian. What’s yours?”

Blinking, the man made a little ‘o’ of realization, and then he grinned, giving another bark of laughter.

“Oh, yeah! I guess I forgot that you wouldn’t know! Sorry about that—“

Elbows pressed against the table, the man leaned forward, separating the distance between them over the table and looked at Keiji with such intense gold eyes, bright and piercing, and Keiji could feel his skin tingle beneath his clothing. It was as if those eyes were trying to see through flesh and into his soul, and somehow it didn’t scare him.

“I’m Bokuto Koutarou, nice to meetcha, Akashi!”

His smile was so bright and clear and honest that Keiji didn’t even feel any real annoyance as he swiftly corrected him, _It’s pronounced_ ** _Akaashi_** : only some kind of endeaarance. It settled in his chest with warmth.

*

While Yamiji had given Keiji quite the tour of the library and a run through of all of his duties—checking in any new requests for books, combing through the checklist, cleaning the desk area, and reorganizing the first section— actually _starting_ his work felt so much more daunting. However, Keiji had a good memory and muttered his list of duties and tasks under his breath repeatedly as he changed into suitable work clothes: he felt himself mostly ready to start work, proper.

Normally, his morning routine before work consisted of making coffee and not nearly enough to eat for breakfast by Hajime’s standards (perhaps some fruit if Keiji remembered), but when Bokuto complained about the emptiness of his fridge, it dawned on him that he should probably go grocery shopping soon—he hoped that his stipend was enough to cover two people. His former routine also sometimes included Hajime coming back inside from a fresh morning run before he had to go to the clinic and fixing himself a smoothie with protein powder. Not hearing the whirr of the blender in the morning was a strange feeling and left Keiji feeling nostalgic.

But Bokuto filled that empty noise plenty with the noises he made, hums, and blurted out statements he made to himself as he wandered about the apartment, remarking on all of the little things that Keiji had brought with him. He moved about the apartment as if he knew it intimately, knew every nook and cranny as if he’d lived there himself for years, and a dozen different speculations came to Keiji’s mind.

They didn’t talk about the proposal. Nor did they talk about the curse that Bokuto alluded to. The conversation moved too quickly for that, and by the time Keiji had begun to muster the courage to ask, it was already just about nine and Keiji had to get to work.

His nerves didn’t quite settle until he reached behind the desk of the library, the lights seeming to turn on by themselves as he walked through the door, illuminating the room with warmth and brightness. Keiji gave the sudden lights a curious glance before lowering the little door to the desk and organized the strewn about papers on the flat surface. On the desk was a list of requests for the day, as well as a catalogue that listed all of the sections that certain books and items could be found in. By the look of the dust on the catalogue, it hadn’t been touched or updated in months, if not longer.

Well, _that_ wouldn’t do.

After doing a quick dusting and wipe down of the desk, Keiji looked over the request list and hummed, adjusting his glasses. He squinted, rifled around for a fresh piece of paper, and then wrote down the accompanying book and the section it could be found in.

All the while, Bokuto frittered about the library, lingering at the desk to observe what Keiji was doing, and then after a beat, suddenly disappeared into the stacks. He didn’t tell Keiji where he went, and he supposed that wasn’t any of his business, even though he couldn’t help but notice that Bokuto hadn’t been wearing shoes as he walked into the stacks and disappeared into the depths of the library.

..Odd.

But Bokuto Koutarou seemed to be an odd sort of person.

Anyone who could be seen as conventionally normal wouldn’t suddenly propose _marriage_ to someone whose apartment they flew into and just met for the very first time.

While completely _naked_.

Ignoring the flush on his face, Keiji got to work and started sorting through the requests. He also ignored how his pulse raced at the memory, of the golden glow surrounding Bokuto as he asked, like it was as easy as breathing.

In order to keep his mind off of the proposal, the _nonchalance_ of it, and how being asked didn’t offend Keiji as much as it **really** should’ve, Keiji started looking through his list of requests to fulfill and began walking through the stacks to find the right books. As he walked, the lanterns and lights of the library lit themselves up to give him a proper view. They almost always happened after Keiji had to squint to look at the number of the rows to make sure he was going in the right direction. It startled him the first few times, but after the third book he found, Keiji got used to it.

He was a little more startled to see a scops owl perched on the front desk when he returned. Unlike the typical coloring of a scops owl, the feathers were a lighter brown, and the brown-orange of its eyes were a more green color, and when it swiveled its head to look at Keiji, it didn’t seem startled or alarmed at all. It took Keiji a beat, but he recognized the owl from his interview; it’d been perched in the aviary, watching him from among the parliament. 

Keiji gave the owl a nod of respect and acknowledgement, and the owl fluffed its feathers and gave a call that was high-pitched, but pleasant to the ears.

Keiji lifted the desk door, carrying the little pile of books under one arm, careful to lower it slowly so that the sound didn’t alarm the owl. When he turned around, he jumped and almost dropped the books in his arms when a man with pale, dirty-blonde hair and narrow green eyes grinned at him.

“Heya,” he said. “Sorry if I spooked you, although I hope I didn’t scare you as much as the big idiot probably did this morning. I’m Konoha.”

If nothing else, Keiji was generally good with maintaining his composure, and after the events of the morning, Keiji was just relieved not to suddenly have a naked man in the middle of the library lobby. He inclined his head to Konoha in a slight bow of respect, shuffling the books in his arms back into proper place before setting them on the table.

“Akaashi Keiji, the recently hired Head Librarian,” he said. “A pleasure to meet you, Konoha-san.”

Konoha grinned at him, bemused.

On the outside of the library, a mass of birds hopped from one window to the other, flew into the alleyway that led to the entrance, and where there’d once been a crow or a falcon, or the stray owl coming home to stoop for the day, there came a human face walking through the door. The cats crept first onto the windowsills, took observation of the new face inside, and then came in. The cats didn’t always transformed; generally speaking, Keiji quickly noticed, the cats came in and out as they pleased without feeling the need to turn into human form, if they had any. Keiji didn’t mind this, as Yamiji told him to expect such a thing.

_Cats, as you know, tend to be solitary creatures that like to do as they please and don’t care for being ordered around. They won’t generally bother you, but if anyone gets out of hand or a bit too excitable, Yaku-kun will be sure to take care of them. ..If he doesn’t egg it on, of course._

So, when a calico colored cat, spots brown, black and white-chested, lazily crept its way onto the countertop and then curled up to sleep in the beam of sunlight pouring through the high-walled windows, Keiji paid it no mind. He didn’t try to pet it, either. 

He figured that would be quite rude.

The only alarming detail that would’ve had any older person than him scattering out the door was when the cat’s tail split into two. 

Keiji only gave it a glance, watched how both tails curled and twitched lazily before settling down for sleep, and then returned to his work. If the calico nekomata’s eyes slit open, revealing golden-yellow, then Keiji paid it no mind. There were quite a few cats that roamed about the library, Keiji noticed, and all of them kept to themselves, only offering Keiji a curious glance before creeping into the many crevasses of the library and its halls. Not a single of the cats shifted into human form. 

Idly, Keiji wondered how many creatures and patrons of the library were capable of shapeshifting, how many could only stay in their original forms, and who was entirely human. He wasn’t about to ask.

Yamiji had told Keiji about Konoha, along with a few of the other owls, and Konoha only lingered for a little bit to say hello and give him a couple more details and tips about the way things ran in the library, all the while giving exaggerated yawns to show his clear exhaustion. Despite how tired he had to be, given that he was a nocturnal creature, Konoha lingered around the front desk for the better part of an hour, long enough for a crow with a silver feathers curling around its neck to come request a couple of scrolls for a Sugawara Koushi. The most peculiar thing about the crow was not only the silver feathers, but the warm amber gleam of its eyes as it cocked its head at him, making a little, deep-throated rattle.

While Keiji held the scrolls in his palms for the crow to catch in its claws, he wondered if Konoha was hanging around just to size him up.

Maybe the naked man in his apartment was a form of hazing to magical creatures. Worse things could’ve been done to him, he supposed.

Speaking of said man—

Keiji hadn’t seen Bokuto since that morning. While Konoha seemed to enjoy talking, he carried a different sort of energy with them than Bokuto did: Konoha was more languid and nonchalant than the exuberance and almost electrifying mirth Bokuto had. He was also significantly less loud than Bokuto was, Keiji could tell already. That he hadn’t heard Bokuto’s booming voice at all yet was surprising, no matter how large the library was. 

_Will you marry me?_

Eyes glazing over a book that he wasn’t even reading, Keiji’s fingers clenched over the pages. Exhaling, he closed it.

“Konoha-san,” he started, “May I ask you something?”

The scops owl slit open an eye, and in a flash of feathers, the somewhat lethargic owl yawned and gave him a faint grin. “Sure, Head Librarian-san.”

Considering his words carefully, Keiji pursed his lips. 

“Bokuto-san didn’t really give me any details, but he’s under a curse isn’t he?”

The faint mirth in Konoha’s expression flickered and faded into something more neutral. He rose his dirty-blonde eyebrows. He was smiling, but it was a little more stiff than it had been before. 

“Yep,” he said, “Sure is—feels like it’s been forever at this point. We haven’t seen him in months, he was probably _dying_ to get out. Completely ran us ragged last night!” He gave a put-upon sigh that was only somewhat exaggerated. “That bastard’s got way too much damn energy, although I guess if you’ve been pent up in a box for five months I would be, too.”

Shock twinge with horror ran through Keiji. The only indication of it on his face was the subtle widening of his eyes. _Five_ ** _months_** _?_

But apparently, it was enough for the owl-man to see the subtle shock on his face. Konoha shrugged his shoulders, but his eyes remained on Keiji, watching him carefully. “Eh, but he’s been stuck longer than that, so five months isn’t too bad by comparison.”

“Five months seems like an awfully long time to me,” said Keiji.

Konoha blinked. A hard edge in the owl’s body language softened. “I guess it would,” he responded. 

The calico nekomata continued to look deeply asleep, but one of its brown and beige spotted ears, tipped with black, twitched.

Konoha grinned, and this time it looked more genuine. “If you’re worried about the big idiot, don’t be—he’s probably just bothering Kuroo or something. Making his rounds to say hi to everyone before sunset. He does this every time after a long stint in the box. He’ll be back when he gets hungry or bored, probably, but he’ll definitely be back before sunset.”

Keiji’s brow furrowed at the strange wording, but he simply replied, “I see.”

Konoha’s grin turned wry and sympathetic. “It’s really better hearing it from Bokuto than me, but the details of it confuse him, too, I think. I’m guessing he forgot to tell you some parts, huh?”

“I didn’t realize it was a multi-faceted curse,” he said, unable to keep himself from the deadpan edge.

The other man snorted. “Oh trust me, it’s always full of weird and confusing parts when you get cursed, especially by deities and gods.”

Ah, that was another part that Keiji was still trying to catch up to: that not only did youkai and ayakashi very much exist, but so did the gods. Not for the first time was he grateful for his impeccable poker face.

But as much as he wanted to ask, as much as he wished his Great Aunt Naomi was still alive so he could tell her everything, as much as he wished he _could_ —there was simply something else he had to ask first before he had to see Bokuto again.

“Is..” He swallowed, ignoring the faint warm flush on the back of his neck, keeping up his professional air as much as possible. “Is proposing marriage to someone another part of that curse?”

Keiji wasn’t sure what kind of reaction he was expecting from a question like that. Shock, perhaps. Surprise, even. Something to indicate just how bizarre it’d been, how quick Bokuto was to ask while he was still naked, freshly transformed in the morning from an owl to a man, eyes bright and pure gold, because no matter the fairy tale or folk tale, to ask marriage of someone you just met _had_ to be out of the ordinary, even for magical creatures.

Konoha, however, only gave a snort and rolled his eyes.

“He asked you already, huh?” He waved Keiji off, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about it, Akaashi. He asks that to everyone at least once. He even asked _me_ : threw a book at his face for that. We keep telling him that he needs to wait and explain the situation to every new librarian, but noooo, the dumbass just doesn’t listen. _‘I just forget!’_ he says. Every damn time.” Making a sneering face, Konoha sighed, shocking his head, and then gave Keiji a wry half-smile. “Don’t worry about rejecting him, either: he doesn’t take it personally. It’s just part of the curse. He _has_ to ask.”

“Oh,” said Keiji.

A gold eye slit open just a crack to see Keiji’s fingers clench and then loosen on the closed book in his hand. His expression was carefully neutral and impassive.

“..Well,” Keiji said flatly, ignoring the strange clench in his chest. “I _did_ throw my pillows at him, so I hope he truly doesn’t take it personally. Should I give him something in apology?”

The nekomata’s face scrunched up in an echo of a human scowl when Konoha suddenly cackled with laughter.

*

After the ruckus that was the early morning, Keiji wasn’t sure what to expect from his first day officially on the job, and wondered if he should have expected something. Yamiji hadn’t given him anything to worry about, but after the eventual dawn… Keiji couldn’t help but wonder.

But as the day dwindled on and closing time arrived, the official hours of the library coming to a close at six in the evening, Keiji was surprised at how mundane and _normal_ the day had gone. The only thing that could be considered _abnormal_ were the animals and creatures that came to pick up book requests and return items, but even then, they came and went with remarkable nonchalance. 

Some of the creatures did pause to look at him, unfamiliar with his face, and Keiji wondered to himself which of them could transform into humans. When they came up to the counter as cats, a fox with a scruffy looking beige colored coat, a hawk and others, Keiji nodded in welcome, rifled around for the names on request forms, grabbed their books and sent them on their way with little fanfare. The most activity he got was when Konoha was around, whose easy presence made the transition from the normal Keiji understood to this new normal a little smoother: every other book he’d read as a teenager and child made magic seem so otherworldly, so beyond comprehension, and the magic of this library was not so extravagant as that.

But Keiji wasn’t disappointed. 

One day of work, and Keiji already knew that this was far and beyond better than any cubicle job could ever hope to be. The light in the library was warm, not stale and clinical, the air was always at the right temperature, and when Keiji thought he’d lost his pens, they suddenly appeared right as he remembered he needed them. Keiji could feel in the air how different it all was— and the nerves that’d been in his stomach since the night before began to settle. They were still there in some capacity of course—but there was none of the overwhelming dread he felt when he had to go into his desk at work at his last job every morning.

When Keiji started to clean the front desk of the library, the lights slowly starting to dim down on their own accord to a comfortable orange, he found himself looking _forward_ to the next day. He considered even grabbing a book of his own to browse through before bed. His chest swelled with an undercurrent of excitement knowing that there were so many books in this place that couldn’t be found anywhere else.

The work was also a welcome distraction from the oddity of the morning, and what Konoha had to say about it. By closing time, little feet, paws, and wings flittering out of the library, Keiji had almost forgotten about it entirely.

“Hey hey! You almost finished closing up?”

Keiji was so startled by the bright voice that he slammed his knee into the side of the counter. He bit his inner cheek to keep from shouting out and Bokuto, on the level above where his legs dangled from the ledge, in between the staircase bannisters, flinched, an apologetic smile on his lips. 

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you!”

“You didn’t,” Keiji replied, placid expression revealing none of the startled pulse in his chest. He rubbed his knee and exhaled as the pain quickly faded.“It’s fine. And yes, I’m almost finished. I just have to put a couple of things away, first.”

The question, _Why are you asking?_ hovered on the tip of his tongue, but Keiji refrained, instead choosing to peer up at the other man. He frowned when he noticed that Bokuto wasn’t wearing any shoes; his feet were completely bare.

“Shouldn’t you be wearing shoes?”

Bokuto cocked his head, temple pressed against one of the bannisters. He blinked at Keiji like it was the silliest question he’d ever heard. Then he laughed. 

“Nah, I don’t need to! I can’t really go outside so it’s not like my feet are dirty or anything.”

Keiji’s frown grew heavier.

“Maybe, but other people come in and out and bring their dirt with them. That doesn’t seem sanitary.”

Bokuto made a face and then laughed, only for Keiji to quickly realize the other man’s choice of words. 

“Don’t worry about it, it’ll all come off when I go out later. I’ll make sure my feet are nice and clean before coming back in tomorrow.”

Keiji blinked. “Are you going somewhere?”

Bokuto cocked his head again, smiling. “Yeah, obviously! I don’t wanna be cooped up here all night! I’m gonna go out flying after sunset.”’

Keiji hummed. “I see,” he murmured.

A black cat with a strange little tuft of fur over its left eye walked along the railing of the floor above, amber eyes bemused as it watched Bokuto leap over the railing to hop down to the ground floor, making the new librarian jump: not so much at the noise, which was minimal given the lightness of Bokuto’s bones, but the ease of the movement. Its mouth curled in humanlike amusement when Bokuto leaned over the counter of the desk, suddenly interested and eager, and the black cat hopped down the stacks upon zeroing in on the still napping calico nekomata.

“Are you done closing up?”

Those golden eyes were so bright and intense that Keiji had to actively resist the urge to fidget underneath his stare. “Ah, yes, I’m done for the day.”

Bokuto put his chin in his palm, peering up at him as Keiji threw the strap of his bag over his shoulder. 

“Are you going out somewhere?”

It was an innocuous question, one that Keiji wouldn’t normally bat an eyelash at, but there was a certain lightness to the question that had Keiji pausing. He turned his head slightly to look at the other man, whose grin was still on his face, but it felt… different. 

There was a beat. “I wasn’t planning on it, no. I was just going to go upstairs and make dinner.”

Golden eyes flickered with interest, brightening, and then dimming only somewhat. When Bokuto spoke next, it was almost careful and forcefully nonchalant: it felt superficial to the ears as Keiji heard it.

“Whatcha making?”

It was so nonchalant that it had Keiji pausing.

“I’m just going to make teriyaki and heat up some vegetables with rice,” he said. “Nothing special.”

While Keiji could very well make sustainable enough meals for himself and was not the disaster in the kitchen he used to be, in no small part thanks to Hajime, he wasn’t exactly what he’d call much of a cook. It took Hajime roping Keiji into a routine to actually make meals beyond cup noodles and convenience store prepped meals. When he did cook, it was usually for just himself.

Before Bokuto could ask another question, looking stuck between being curious and deflated, and after a small pause, Keiji added;

“I can make more if you’d like to join me.”

Bokuto lit up.

*

While Akaashi Keiji wasn’t exactly rude or actively cold, it couldn’t be denied that his politeness and reserved nature made him come across as aloof and hard to get to know. Keiji didn’t really have that many close friends while growing up, which suited him well enough, he supposed. It was when Hajime came into his life that his minuscule social circle opened up and his half-brother was just as much as his best friend as he was family. Keiji didn’t think of himself as shy: just aware of himself and preferred to keep his feelings and thoughts close to his chest to make life a little smoother to navigate. Keiji liked his space, and having an overly large circle of acquaintances and friends who said one thing but thought another would impede too much on that.

Which was why it was startling how easy it was to let Bokuto into his kitchen, watch how Bokuto despaired at how little meat was in Keiji’s fridge, and all but take over the cooking like an excited child in an arcade or toy store. 

“That’s it?” Bokuto moaned, frowning at the half pound of beef that Keiji had intended on cooking for himself. “Aren’t you going to make more?”

“Since you’re joining me, obviously, and I have more,” said Keiji as he rifled through his fridge to take out the rest of the beef; he’d been intending on saving it for another time, but since he couldn’t think of anything special to make with it yet, he figured this would be fine. “You can have most of it, though, if you want. I don’t need that much.”

It wasn’t the whole truth—Keiji could wolf down massive plates in one sitting under three minutes if he was hungry enough— but Keiji had gotten so used to the grind of his previous job that skipping meals and smaller meals had become the norm. He simply hadn’t had time to cook for himself or eat in between long shifts. It was a difficult habit to break out of, one that Hajime had to strong-arm Keiji into doing. And after a long day, Keiji should’ve wanted to have his dinner alone, especially after the first work day.

But as he watched Bokuto pop around his kitchen and make comments and remarks about the spices and seasonings Keiji had in his cabinets, Keiji couldn’t find it in himself to be bothered.

It helped, also, that Bokuto was a surprisingly deft cook. Keiji did pick up, upon a glance at the beef that was cooking on the stove top, that Bokuto was making his part of the meat on the redder side than Keiji’s.

… _Huh_.

“So! How’d you find us here?”

Keiji looked up from his plate mid-chew and saw Bokuto staring at him with wide gold eyes, blatantly curious and enthusiastic. The other man was sitting cross legged in his chair, both hoisted up on the seat: like a bird making its perch on a branch.

“I saw an ad in a magazine.”

Bokuto’s frown was a borderline pout. “That’s it?”

Keiji gave a shrug of his shoulders, chewing on his food and swallowing before answering. “That’s it. Just an ad in a magazine.” He gave a small pause, then glanced out the window, where the sky was turning a deeper orange. “I had pneumonia, so there wasn’t much else I could do besides read magazines without getting a headache or falling asleep. I found the advertisement, called and completed the interview and met Yamiji-san, and, well—”

And here he was now. Eating dinner with an owl man who asked for his hand in marriage, had apparently done so to various people for reasons Keiji still didn’t know, and seemed to think nothing of it. Life had gotten quite a bit more surreal than it had been just a month before.

Keiji wouldn’t have traded it back for his old life.

What startled him most was how easy the conversation felt: Bokuto was nothing if not a chatter box, names Keiji wasn’t familiar with yet leaping off of his tongue as he told the librarian all about what he’d done that day, who he’d talked to—a Kuroo and Hinata being the most frequent— continuing to chatter on even when Keiji replied with little more than a hum, an _I see_ or two, and nods of acknowledgement. None of which seemed to bother Bokuto, as he kept going on.

There were moments, however, when Keiji offered a more lengthy response to one of his questions that had Bokuto pausing to stare at him: a half-beat where those gold eyes fixed on him, as if surprised that he’d answered at all.

Keiji was curious, but didn’t press, and felt no anxious need to: because talking to Bokuto felt much easier than he expected.

But there were still several things that Keiji was holding back from saying, hesitant to ask, and from the corner of his eye, he saw Bokuto pacing around the large windows as the sun set, orange and purpled dyed across the skyline of Tokyo. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet, bare, agitated: excited.

He paused in the middle of his washing of dishes. Keiji pursed his lips, then exhaled.

“Bokuto-san?”

“Mm?” Bokuto blinked, an ever present smile on his face as he turned to look over his shoulder. 

“Do you mind if I ask a question?”

Bokuto stared at him for half a beat before his smile widened into a grin, practically hopping to cross the threshold from the open area where Keiji’s bed was to the kitchen proper: the apartment didn’t really have any walls beyond the bathroom and a wall that wasn’t really a wall, giving the illusion of separation between his bedroom and the kitchen.

“Sure!” He said, “Ask me whatever you want!”

Keiji lowered the dishes back into the sink and dried them with the towel to stall the sudden fidget of his fingers. He inhaled through his nose, and his shoulders tensed. Unblinking, Bokuto waited.

“Do you… have to always stay in the library?”

It was a shutter across the other man’s face, a slight crack, and Keiji felt his chest suddenly twist with something that felt terribly daunting when Bokuto’s smile took a slight edge, a flinch shuddering across his expression briefly. 

“Only during the day,” he said. “How much do you know?”

It was even more brief, but Keiji could’ve sworn that Bokuto looked tired. It was soon replaced by a sunny expression that didn’t feel quite right on the other man’s face. Keiji kept the hand towel between his fingers.

“Not very much, only that you’re… cursed,” he answered, the words feeling silly on the tongue as he said them. “Only that you don’t leave the library during the day, you’re an owl at night, and apparently proposing marriage to strangers is part of the deal.”

There was an awkward beat, and then Bokuto burst out into peals of laughter.

*

The nature of curses and enchantments was an enigma that even those who were born into the world where the boundaries were thin had yet to fully understand them, each of their nuances, requirements, and natures. Only with experience, knowledge and time did one come close to understanding how carefully magic must be dealt with: in magic, there was no cheating. There was always a price to be paid, and true witches, warlocks, soothsayers and others knew this to be true. Even those exorcists, onmyouji and their ilk knew this to be true.

Gods were just as unknowable, fickle, and cruel in their enigmatic nature.

Koutarou had trouble remembering what life before the library was like, and he had just as much trouble understanding the nature of his own curse. All he could remember in any clear way was a whimsy of youth, when he was still able to fly as an owl whenever he wanted and transform into his human form no matter where he went, a mistake of youthful arrogance.

_I’m really strong, so no one can hope to be my equal, right?_

The gods are fickle, and ears just as sharp.

The new librarian with glasses that sat on the edge of his nose, dark brows furrowed in curiosity, listened patiently as Bokuto explained what he did know and understand about his curse, hands cupped around the mug of lukewarm coffee. He could feel the warmth of the sunset on his back as he explained on, legs propped up and folded beneath him as he sat in the chair at the table. Koutarou made himself comfortable, as this was a speech he’d given dozens of times before: to new patrons, librarians, and the stray human who came into the library by accident or misstep.

When Akaashi left the library, Koutarou would have to explain it all over again. And again. And again.

It was only a matter of time before Akaashi left this job, too, so Koutarou had no qualms about sharing this part of his life that had been made so well-known to the entire library. Rare was the patron that didn’t know about the owl in the rafters, unable to go anywhere beyond the walls during the daylight.

“I made a local god angry, so they cursed me: during the day, I’m stuck in human form and I’m kept in one place, and at night, I turn back into my owl form. But I can’t transform back whenever I want. I can only transform at sunset and sunrise. Which is why you gotta keep the windows open, okay!”

Akaashi pressed his lips together. “There are other windows in this building, aren’t there? Why _mine_?”

Koutarou’s grin spread. “This place has the best view!”

It was also a safety precaution, he swiftly added, nonchalant: so long as the librarian was aware of where he was coming and going, that would mean less worry about windows being left open for other people to see. Outsiders could absolutely not be allowed to know of its true existence.

Akaashi’s curiosity was clear at this, even with his adept poker face, as he leaned forward a touch. “What about people who come across it by accident?”

Koutarou smiled. “It’s never an accident. They don’t find this place unless it _wants_ to be found.”

He could tell that Akaashi didn’t quite understand just yet, but he would in time—if he stayed long enough.

“So, until I’m able to break it, that’s my routine,” he finished, glancing at the growing orange of the sky through the window. It wouldn’t be long before sunset.

“I see,” said Akaashi, lowering his now empty mug. His hands folded together (Koutarou noted that he had rather long fingers, remembered how they’d swept through his feathers with such languid ease: hands a musician would be jealous of) and his mouth fell into a thoughtful frown. Koutarou tilted his head to the side as Akaashi’s brow furrowed: he couldn’t tell what kind of emotion the other man was feeling, but he was clearly thinking.

“How do you break it?”

Ah, what a question.

It was difficult for Koutarou to keep his grin up this time, and try as he might, some of the cracks from frustration likely bled through. “Still trying to figure that out, Akashi—“

“It’s A _kaa_ shi.”

“—But I do have a lead!” A pause. “Kind of! I know that I have to find some items—“

An egg, a needle and a spindle. All gold, all only able to be made through magic.

“And they should lead me to my equal,” whatever _that_ meant, “Then after I ask them to marry me and they say yes, it’s broken.”

Akaashi’s stare was long and unblinking this time.

“…In that order?”

Koutarou shrugged. “Maybe? The god didn’t exactly give me any other directions than that,” he said, glum.

“That’s why you asked, then.”

The librarian’s tone was odd as he said it, but Koutarou couldn’t pinpoint what it was that made it feel off: Akaashi was hardly the first he’d proposed to, although previous rejections were much more… openly negative than Akaashi’s. Akaashi seemed more concerned with Koutarou’s lack of clothing if anything else, but Koutarou didn’t expect anything else. He’d gotten used to rejections, but he was still hopeful.

He had to be. Hope was all he had.

Koutarou just laughed. “I just have to check all my bases. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

Akaashi shook his head. “No, not uncomfortable I was.. startled, more than anything else. It was kind of a lot to take in that early in the morning.”

“Give it a couple of months and it’ll be sunrise later, so I won’t have to wake you up as early!”

Akaashi made a humming noise and he stood up, taking his mug with him to the sink. Koutarou’s attention drew to the windows, where the sky was bleeding from orange into purple, and a hint of ink dark blue on the horizon; the stars weren’t out just yet, but they would be soon enough, in just a couple more hours. He allowed his mind to drink at the sound of the sink running, paying no mind to the possible awkwardness of his presence. If Akaashi eventually told him to get out and go fritter around in one of the empty apartments, Koutarou wouldn’t be terribly hurt by it. It wouldn’t be the first time: his entire being was a lot for most of the librarians to take in and handle, especially in their apartment spaces.

The rush of the sink running paused.

“Bokuto-san, how long have you lived here in the library?”

Caught off guard by the question, Koutarou found himself staring at the dark-haired librarian, the usual grin slipping off of his face. Akaashi wasn’t quite looking at him, but his lips were pressed together and his hands were still in the sink, hidden, but his forearms, visible from the rolled up sleeves of his sweater, were tense and rigid.

He thought for a moment.

And he blinked.

“…I don’t know,” he said. “A long time.”

After a certain point, it all started to bleed and blend together. It wasn’t a question he got asked much.

To most magical creatures like him, time flowed much more quickly than it did for a human. What counted as a long time? Koutarou wasn’t sure. All he did know for certain was that he hadn’t been able to step outside into the sun as himself in human in so long that he’d forgotten what it felt like to have the warmth of the sun on his skin. He’d forgotten what rain felt like on skin. He only knew it on feathers.

It wasn’t something he liked to think about. And when he was trapped as a feather, at least then, he could simply drift and not think about at all. As a feather, it wasn’t necessary to think whatsoever. Sometimes it was better than being left alone with his thoughts while wandering the stacks of the library, unable to do anything other than watch all of his friends come and go as they pleased.

“Yeah!” He repeated, a grin forming on his lips again, voice bright and cheery. “A long time!”

His fingers dug into the bone and flesh of his ankles, where they sat beneath him on the chair.

Akaashi’s steel blue-green eyes peered at him from under waves of black hair and they spoke no more on the subject. 

There was still a lot that Akaashi hadn’t unpacked, mostly books, and while Koutarou wasn't one for reading—the print was so difficult to focus on that he couldn’t absorb anything that he tried to read when forced to sit still, a brutal irony when having to stay in a library all day—but Koutarou made himself content by browsing as he waited for the sun to set, rolling on the balls of his feet in anticipation. While it was nice to be able to see and talk to his friends again after five months, he was desperate to go out flying again and see what else had changed while he’d been asleep. In the meantime, Akaashi occupied himself with further unpacking and taking a break to read, leafing through a paperback idly once all of his kitchen utensils had been put away.

A soft beep from the clock by Akaashi’s nightstand informed him that it was ten minutes to sundown. Koutarou leapt up from his spot on the floor and felt himself practically vibrating in anticipation.

The minutes seemed to pass by like hours. Koutarou could practically feel the feathers unfurling under his skin, wings ready to unfold and spread out on the wind, desperate to feel that chill again. One night simply wasn’t enough, would never be enough. He imagined that Konoha and the others were waiting outside on the railing, waiting for him to fly out the window in a streak. He wondered where they would go today—

A small creaking sound drew his attention, and Koutarou blinked when he saw Akaashi stride across the room and hoist himself onto his mattress, where he pulled down the string to lower the window for easy access.

Gold eyes followed the back of the dark-haired man’s head as he left the window ajar, and then carried about his business cleaning up the apartment.

Akaashi turned and looked at him, “I’ll leave the window open for you, Bokuto-san. When it’s morning.”

It was such a simple statement. There was nothing especially noteworthy about it, not with Akaashi’s matter of fact tone and affect. For all anyone knew, it was simply another part of Akaashi’s job and he was adhering to it. 

But as he walked away from the window, it was indeed left open.

Before the feathers burst out of skin, all of his limbs shifting and changing and taking shape as a painting does, colors merging together—he looked at the dark-haired man and felt his eyes lingering, a smile of wonder parting his lips.

Before Koutarou could utter any other world, clothing and fabric fell away from his body, and Akaashi stood from the kitchen as he watched a great horned owl shoot out of the apartment and into the sunset. After the great horned owl, came several other owls of varying sizes that flew about each other in circles, hooting, calling and screeching, before they too disappeared into the evening light.

Akaashi stood by the window for a long moment, waiting until the owls became little more than specks in the distance before they were gone entirely, and he made sure that the window was left open just enough for a large bird to fly through, and went about the rest of his evening.

Before bed, after making sure that he had the coffee machine ready to brew for the next morning, he contemplated the kitchen table.

Two empty mugs sat on the flat surface as Akaashi went to sleep.

In the morning, he would wake up to the incessant hooting in his ear, a pair of wide yellow-orange eyes that flickered gold, and silver and black feathers. Then Keiji would find himself staring at golden eyes and a wide smile, excited and eager for the new day, and in the morning, Keiji heard, once again—

“Will you marry me?”

“..Not today, Bokuto-san.”

**Author's Note:**

> keep an eye out on that 'completed' update, because this might well end up being a five part series... just saying... i can't promise anything in the future, but it's a possibility!
> 
> translate the title from the latin and you'll see why it's the title :)
> 
> thank you for reading!


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